The Silver Lining
by FlowerOwl
Summary: Sometimes, Zelda found, having to accompany your friend to the emergency room in the middle of the night came with unexpected but pleasant surprises.


Zelda liked to think of herself as a generally good person. Maybe she was not always the most patient, and she did have a habit of getting up in the middle of the night when an idea appeared to make sure she got the chance to write it down before it would leave her again, something that resulted in Zelda often waking up her roommate in the process, but for the most part, she would say that she tried her best to think of the people around her.

That, however, did not mean that Zelda enjoyed having to sit with Link in the emergency room at four in the morning, conflicted between the need to close her eyes in an attempt to block out at least some of the harsh, white light that flooded the room and the knowledge that if she did so, she would most likely fall asleep only to experience the unpleasant sensation of snapping awake at the sound of the next person entering the room.

They had come in there what felt like days ago—even if the clock on Zelda's phone did not agree with her estimate—sitting on plastic chairs that looked like whoever had decorated the room had decided to balance out the blank walls by buying the most colourful furniture they could find, something that had led to Zelda sitting on a pink chair with Link next to her, the colour of his chair an equally loud orange.

In fact, the orange colour was only surpassed in loudness by Link himself.

He sat with his left hand cradled against his chest, the blouse Zelda had worn underneath her short-sleeved dress earlier that night pressed against his knuckles, leaning over towards her slightly as he kept worrying over the state of his hand.

"Do you think I will make it?" he asked, and had it not been for how Zelda knew that they were both tired, she might have assumed that he was messing with her, trying to make her worry only to reveal that he knew it was going to be fine. As it was, she was almost completely sure that they were both too tired to attempt to prank each other. Of course, Zelda's was also struggling with the simple task of staying awake, so she doubted she would be able to come with a just somewhat qualified answer to his question. Instead, she settled on shrugging and doing her best to make her voice appear calm, hoping that this time, it would be enough to make Link stop asking and maybe get some sleep. Goddesses knew they both needed it.

"Yes, I have never heard of anyone dying from scrapes," she said, having to supress a yawn halfway through the sentence. Nayru, she was too tired. The second they could get out of here, she was going home to try to grab her chance of getting just a couple of hours of sleep before she had to get up again.

"Are you sure?" Link asked, not giving her a chance to respond before he continued. "Because this feels different from a normal scrape."

"How so?"

"I don't know…" Link sighed, "it just does."

Trying to figure out how to respond to such a vague answer, Zelda gestured towards the hand in question. "Okay, then. Can you feel the hand?" as soon as Link looked her, raising his left eyebrow slightly, she realised the stupidity of her question. Shaking her head in an attempt to clear her mind, Zelda tried another approach. "Yeah, sorry, I didn't really think about that. Just… can you move your fingers?"

At that, Link paused, looking down at the bundle of fabric around his hand. "I think so," he said after a moment of silence, "it just feels a bit weird."

Zelda suspected that even if she had been fully rested, she would still not know what to make of that. But the look that Link sent her—pain and tiredness coming together to form a cocktail that, to Zelda, mostly seemed to resemble some kind of panic—she decided that it was not the time to admit that she actually had no idea what she was talking about.

Putting on her brightest—and probably fakest as well—smile, Zelda reached over to pat Link's shoulder, making sure not to brush against the injured hand. "I'm sure it will be fine."

"So do I," Link nodded, "but just in case I don't make it, I want you to tell Revali that this is all his fault and that he can get my laptop."

There was something almost comical about seeing Link, her friend, the one she had seen fall from the window of her flat that was located on the second floor only to get back up and laugh about it like nothing had happened until Urbosa had forced him to go to the emergency room, sit here and tell her what to do in the event he should die over a few bruises and scrapes on his hand that Zelda could not keep back a low chuckle.

"I will make sure to tell him that."

Link smiled before closing his eyes, leaning back until his head touched the wall.

They sat like that in silence for a while, Zelda looking around at the other people in the waiting room, shooting a look at Link from time to time. She was not sure whether or not he was still awake, but just in case he had fallen asleep, she decided not to attempt to talk to him. One of them had to stay awake to be alert for when it would be their turn, yes, but that did not mean that the other could not get a chance to sleep.

So instead, Zelda looked around at the other people who had been unfortunate enough to end up in the emergency room with its bright light and loud colours so early in the morning.

Across from where she and Link were sitting, she spotted a girl who sat with her arm hanging limply at her side. When she noticed Zelda looking, she sent her a short smile which Zelda returned, though none of them dared to make a sound and break the silence in the room.

It was in that moment that the door on the opposite side of the room opened and a woman stepped in.

Zelda was not sure what was the most eye-catching about her, how she was quite clearly the only one in the room who was happy to be there or the deep, red colour of her hair. But even Zelda's tired brain was aware enough to recognise the fact that both of them were a good kind of eye-catching.

Thankfully, the woman saved her from accidentally blurting out something stupid, as she barely took a moment to scan the room before calling out. "Is there a Link Forest here?"

Before she had properly realised what she was doing, Zelda had already stood up. "Yes, it's me—or well, it's my friend!" she said, perhaps a bit too loudly, as an older man sitting in the corner of the room took the time to frown at her before going back to his newspaper. But right then, Zelda didn't care about that. All that mattered was that she would soon be able to go home again.

The woman crossed the room, coming closer to them, and now, Zelda could read the text on the metallic name pin that had been fastened to the front of her shirt. Mipha Ruta, nurse.

"Is he the one in need of help?" Mipha asked, gesturing towards Link.

That made Zelda wake up properly. As she moved to shake Link awake, trying her best to keep his left arm still in the process, she shot Mipha what she hoped was a friendly smile, even if it felt more like an exhausted grimace. "Yes, I'm just here because someone had to make sure he was okay—my name is Zelda, by the way," she paused for a moment, trying her best to hide the embarrassment she could feel seeping through her body at the random detail she had just thrown into what was not supposed to be a conversation, before she forced herself to continue, "I'm pretty sure he is fine, though, he is just a bit tired—we have been awake since six yesterday." why she had felt the need to tack on the last part was a mystery to Zelda, though she suspected it might possibly be as an attempt to explain herself, but the words had already left her mouth when she realised that Mipha definitely had better things to do than listening to her whine about how her friends had a habit of getting hurt in the middle of the night.

But rather than looking annoyed, Mipha just tilted her head slightly, a sympathetic expression on her face. "Yeah, that does absolutely sound like you need to get some sleep soon." she paused before nodding towards Link who had begun to stir slightly. "Mr. Forest, it is your turn now, so if you could please follow me, then both you and your friend can go home again as soon as possible."

Zelda could see how Link was barely awake, so far away that he might as well have been asleep as he looked first at Mipha and then over at her. "This is all Revali's fault," he announced, causing Mipha's smile to falter slightly as she raised a brow.

"What?"

"Never mind him," Zelda said, placing her hand on top of Link's right hand while mentally trying to communicate to him that he had to get up and follow Mipha right now, "he is just tired."

Mipha nodded and opened her mouth, but before she got the chance to say anything, Link—having evidently not gotten the message—spoke up again. "But it is. If he hadn't surprised me, I would never have injured my hand by punching that wall."

By now, there was no way that she could make Link stand up and go through the door without Mipha knowing the full story beforehand, so Zelda gave up on her quest of trying to fully wake up Link by tugging at his right arm while she did her best to ignore the nasty glares they were both receiving from the people around her.

Instead, she looked over at Mipha. "We were out with a few of our other friends, when Revali decided to sneak up on Link in an attempt to scare him. I guess it worked, I mean, Revali did see the intended reaction, but it also caused Link to try to defend himself from the sound, so he tried to hit the source of the sound as he turned around, and as you could probably guess," she motioned towards Link's left hand that was still wrapped in her blouse, "he missed, hitting the wall next to him instead." the silence that followed the story prompted her to follow it up by adding even more words to what was already an unnecessary story. "I'm sorry, it was pretty dumb, but Link insisted that it hurt a lot, so I thought it was best to go here with him just in case."

"No, no, believe me, it's not that dumb," Mipha said, and maybe it was just Zelda's brain playing tricks on her in an attempt to make her realise that she had to go to bed, but she could have sworn that her heart skipped a beat as Mipha beamed at her while she continued, "or at least it is considerable less dumb than the story behind such an injury could have been."

It was an uncommon compliment—and to be honest, it was probably not even a compliment at all—but right then, it was what Zelda needed to hear.

"Thank you." For a moment Zelda just smiled up at Mipha, her cheeks feeling slightly warmer than they usually were when she saw Mipha return the gesture.

A loud cough coming from the man in the corner of the room appeared to make Mipha realise that she was still there in the waiting room, waiting for Link to get up from his chair.

Clearing her throat, she turned away from Zelda. "Mr. Forest, if you could come with me now, then we can get a look at your hand and try to figure out if what to do about it."

It should not have felt that way to watch Mipha turn around and walk away from her, Link following a couple of metres behind her, but right then Zelda was more disappointed to watch Mipha leave than she was relieved to hear that they would be able to return home again somewhat soon.

Barely managing to stop herself from being petty and sending the man who had interrupted them a glare of her own, Zelda leant back in the chair before she grabbed one of the magazines from the table next to her and tried her best to let it take her mind off Mipha.

However, she found that it was easier said than done, and although she did her best to make her tired eyes remain focused on the text on the pages, she kept seeing the little name tag each time she blinked. By now, a growing suspicion that her lack of interest in the article had less to do with the fact that her eyes were hurting and dry and how her head was feeling heavier each minute and more to do with the fact that, had they met earlier in the night, Zelda would probably have tried to strike up a conversation with Mipha was forming in her chest, small at first, but soon impossible to ignore.

But she was here, at the emergency room so early in the morning that it was practically still night. It was not exactly the right time or place to think about that. So she did her best to force herself to be interested in the recipe for fruitcake. According to the article, it was 'the best version of the old treat you would ever get the joy of tasting', but not even the ambitious promise was enough to distract her.

So when Mipha came back, Link walking into the room right after her, Zelda had to try her hardest not to let it show how she had spent most of the time checking first the clock hanging above the door and then making sure that it had not stopped working by confirming the time on her phone, silently debating how long it could take to make sure that Link was not.

"How did it go?" she asked, trying her best to casually walk over to Mipha and Link, the question not directed at any one of them in particular.

"It went fine," Link said, extending his hand towards her to let her look at it. And look was exactly what Zelda did as Link began to excitedly point between his hand and Mipha, "she was the best, just took one look at it and asked a few questions before she was able to say that it was fine. Here, you can have this back now."

He threw a piece of crumpled fabric towards her and Zelda didn't realise that it was her shirt until she had already caught it, biting back a comment about how Mipha had ended up telling him the exact same thing Zelda had spent the last few hours trying to convince him was the case.

Glancing back and forth between them, Mipha clasped her hands together. "Yes, although I would not advise you to make punching walls your new hobby, your hand is perfectly fine save for a few scrapes that will heal soon enough. So, I assume you two might want to get out of here now and attempt to get some sleep, right?"

"No, not really," Zelda said, pausing to point up at the clock, "I don't think it is really worth the effort at this point to go home only to get a little under half an hour of rest. Coffee is supposed to work wonders, so it should be able to get Link and me through the day." despite the fake cheerful tone of her voice, Zelda could say with one hundred per cent certainty that she was not looking forward to having to somehow get through the next twenty-something hours that was between her and her next chance to get a nap.

"Oh," Mipha said, her voice distracting Zelda from her self-pitying thoughts, as she instead looked up to find Mipha fiddling with her name tag, "well, my shift has just ended, and I know this great coffee shop right around the corner, so… if you want to, we could perhaps grab a cup of coffee there together?"

Oh.

It took a moment before Zelda's sleep deprived brain understood what was happening, but once it did, it felt like the world came to an abrupt halt, the hushed conversations around her stopping at once to make space for the sudden realisation that Mipha might just have asked her out on what could potentially be a date, or at least it sounded a lot like it was a date, going to drink coffee together at five in the morning.

She must have stayed silent for slightly too long, for she could see Mipha's cheeks turn slightly pink as she hurried to add. "Of course Link can come along as well! Or not at all, you probably also know a coffee shop, I was just thinking that—"

"No, no, you were right," Link cut in, turning towards Zelda to send her a not at all subtle wink, "Zelda definitely need you to show her that coffee shop. And don't worry about me, I don't like coffee—always preferred tea to that," lies, but Zelda was thankfully still too perplexed to comment on it, "so you two can just go on your own." Link finished by gently shoving Zelda closer to Mipha.

That did the trick, and Zelda finally caught up with what was going on around her.

"Yeah," she said, struggling to not trip over the words, "yeah, I would love to see this coffee shop!"

Mipha beamed back at her. "Great! Give me a second, I just need to remove the nametag, and then I will be ready to show you the way."

Once Mipha had disappeared through the door again, Zelda felt someone poke her shoulder. She turned around to see Link smile at her.

"Aren't you going to say thank you to me for injuring my hand? You know, if it hadn't been for me, we would not have been here now, so, in a way, it was worth not getting a moment of sleep to take me to the emergency room instead."

Zelda shoved him lightly. "In your dreams! This was fate and nothing else."

Link just laughed softly, but as Mipha returned—this time without her name pin—Zelda had to admit that he had been right about one thing: sometimes having to accompany your friend to the emergency room in the middle of the night came with unexpected but pleasant surprises.


End file.
